2011
Kolmogorov Complexity - A Primer
The Complexity of Things Previously on this blog (quite a while ago), we’ve investigated some simple ideas of using randomness in artistic design (psychedelic art, and earlier randomized css …
Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 2,098 posts.
2012
2013
Finding Unity in the Math Wars
I usually avoid current events, but recent skirmishes in the math world prompted me to chime in. To recap, there've been heated discussions about math…
2014
2015
A group of Finnish math teachers write an open textbook in a weekend hackathon
A group of Finnish mathematics researchers, teachers and students write an upper secondary mathematics textbook in a booksprint. The event s...
2016
2017
Startup Culture
It's with a culture where people can thrive and tackle problems they find interesting. It's not with offering standing desks and beefy computers; every Silicon Valley startup offers that.
2018
The Most Successful E-mail I Ever Wrote
2008 blast from the past: me, Mike Wallin, and Derek Sivers, the subject of this post. (Photo: A3maven) [Total read time: 3-5 minutes.] Derek Sivers is one of my favorite people. He is a programmer who lost his stage fright by doing more than 1,000 gigs as a circus ring leader (!!!). He’s also a […]
2019
The Core Memory Module from my dad’s homebuilt PDP-11/05
This is basically the 1974 version of a DIMM. It measures 16″ by 11.5″ and holds 16 kilobytes. It’s technically 18 bits wide but only 16 were used in the PDP-11. The raised part in the middle is where the cores are actually stored. Each bit is a little ring with 3 wires running through the middle. By running current…
2020
2021
OrmHate
Object-Relational Mappers get a lot of hate from people who misjudge the complexities of the task.
2022
2023
Interviewing at Google, Facebook, Foursquare, Dropbox, Fog Creek, etc
An overview of interview questions at some of Silicon Valley and NYC's largest tech companies
2024
2025
IE10 won't run Flash unless website is whitelisted by Microsoft
Yeah you read that right. I just received an interesting email from Brightcove (the video delivery guys) about issues with their Flash based solution and Windows 8 running the new Internet Explorer 10. To quote:
2026
2027
2028
Crap I'm speaking at [insert conference here]. How do I prepare?
You just got a notice saying that your talk was accepted to [some huge freaking conference]. Awesome!
2029
The Switch from Heroku to Hardware
Shop a wide selection of domains at HugeDomains.com. Find the right domain name today.
2030
2031
The birthday paradox in action: calculating the probability of a hash collision
You may feel like you've seen this before. If you have, skip to the end where I talk about a formula, and discuss the relevance to parameters in computer hashing algorithms. In particular, I'm going to talk about how large hash spaces should be to avoid collisions with a given level of probability. If there are just…
2032
2033
An Intuitive Explanation of Bayes' Theorem
Bayes’ Theorem for the curious and bewildered; an excruciatingly gentle introduction.
2034
2035
2036
Making money with a product: a myth?
I’ve realised there was a time I didn’t believe people would pay for a product. In my mind, it was a myth. As an entrepreneur, it’s so vital to overcome that.
2037
Adding a new statement to Python
This article is an attempt to better understand how the front-end of Python works. Just reading documentation and source code may be a bit boring, so I'm taking a hands-on approach here: I'm going to add an until statement to Python.
2038
Don’t Eat Too Much Three Bean Salad. The Server Will Crash.
Hands-on reviews of the latest online casinos in Australia. Find new pokies, fast payouts, PayID deposits and top welcome bonuses for 2026.
2039
2040
The Lost Art of Becoming Good at Things
Hey folks — on hiatus from writing here, but not forever. Subscribe to hear from me when I surface with updates. Click to read Corbett Barr, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.